Why Israel Rejected the Promised Land — Kadesh-Barnea Explained

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. And again, it's good to have everybody with us, and those of you joining us in television, we are now on satellite, so I just don't really know what time of the day or the hour I may be speaking to someone. But whatever, wherever you are, we are glad to have you joining us. We trust you'll take your Bible, and this is nothing but an informal study. And I've always tried to point out, we aren't trying to brainwash anyone. We're not trying to build a following. Almost every morning I get up and I wonder, what in the world have I gotten into? But as most of you know, I never dreamed of ever having a television program. And I think the first opportunity the Lord would let me out of it, I'd say, thank you. But anyhow, we'll carry on as long as He seems to be leading in that direction. Now again, my little wife has put all pertinent information on the blackboard. For those of you who have been asking so often where various classes are and times and what have you, and we always like to remind, for sake of those who are just tuning in the first time, that all of these past programs are available on videotape. And we don't trumpet them because we're making anything on them. It's only so that you can study. And we have so many people commenting that they are enjoying the tapes from, you might say, all aspects of society, from the very highly educated to common people like you and I. And so we trust that the Lord will use them. We also have it in print now, so if you'd like to have the booklet, you write us or call us. All right, now I've had so many people, as I mentioned a couple programs ago, that are calling and writing and admonishing me to hurry up and get into prophecy. So I am skipping a few things that I really don't like to skip, just for sake of time, not because they're not important. But I'm going to take it this evening all the way up to Numbers chapter 14, where we mentioned a couple of weeks ago that seven weeks after the tabernacle was raised up the first time, the cloud lifted and it directed the children of Israel all the way up to the border of the promised land, the land of milk and honey. Now here we are at Numbers chapter 14, and of course a lot has taken place in the meantime. We've had the episode of leprosy, you remember, with Miriam, because of some of her complaints and God dealt with it, but fortunately He also healed her. And we had the episode of the quails, and Israel was complaining because they didn't have the flesh pots of Egypt. But now we come all the way over to Numbers chapter 14, and it's a sad, sad state of affairs, isn't it? Verse 1, and all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried, and the people wept that night, and all the children of Israel murmured against Moses. Now that's nothing new, is it? They've been doing it almost since the day they left. And against Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would God we had died in this wilderness. Now always remember the setting. Here in the last 13 months of time, they have experienced the miraculous exodus out of Egypt. The taskmasters thrown off their backs. They walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. They've seen the appearance of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. They saw all of the thunder and the lightning and the fire on Mount Sinai. They saw how God could institute a plague and kill 21,000 people, but He could also come back and in mercy stop it. I mean, they have just seen miracle after miracle after miracle, haven't they? And yet, here they come on the very borders of the promised land, the land of milk and honey, the land that God said He would use hornets as well as other means to drive out the Canaanites. And He says, All you have to do is go in and occupy. Now, He said, I won't drive them all out so that you can't keep up because, see, then the wild animals might take over before you got there. But He said, I'll drive them out just fast enough so that you can occupy the homes that they've built, the wells that they've dug, the vineyards that they've planted. It's all yours. All you have to do is go in and take it. But as I pointed out several weeks ago, come back with me to Deuteronomy. Go ahead to Deuteronomy, isn't it? Go ahead to Deuteronomy because you have to see this in Scripture or you might not take my word for it. Deuteronomy chapter 1. And Moses, of course, is kind of rehearsing everything here in Deuteronomy of what has gone on before. And so, after the fact, he is now writing a synopsis of it, you might say, and you come down to chapter 1, verse 19, where Moses writes, And when we departed from Horeb, that's Mount Sinai, after the tabernacle had been constructed, taken down, the cloud moved them, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, and the Sinai Peninsula is just exactly that. It is the most awesome geographical area that you can imagine. It's not flat desert. It's just tremendous mountains and canyons, and how God kept track of any worse than three to seven million people and all their livestock, I don't know. That in itself was a miracle. But nevertheless, Moses writes, We went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which you saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us, and we came to Kadesh Barnea. Now that's on the border. The promised land is just ahead. And I said unto you, You are come unto the mountain of the Amorites, which the Lord our God doth give unto us. Now is there any hint in there of problems? No. It's there. And then go on to verse 21, Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee. Go up and spy it out. What? Possess it. Now what I like to emphasize, and I think a lot of people miss, did God intend those twelve spies to go into Israel? No. God intended for the nation of Israel to go right on in by faith, knowing that He would take care of the inhabitants, because He said He would. He said He would drive them out. Now how did they cross the Red Sea? By faith. See? Now you say, Yeah, but it's on dry ground. But now wait a minute. They knew that that water was walled up someplace. I don't think it was like Cecil B. DeMille's movie, Just a Narrow Cavern. I don't think the people could see really where that wall of water was. I think it must have been a wide area, but nevertheless, it was there. Now would you have liked to just glibly walk through? So how did they do it? By faith. Now here they come to the same kind of a situation. Granted, they don't know what to expect, but God has told them that He would have everything ready for them. He would drive out their enemies, and all they'd have to do is occupy. Now this is what I want you to understand, that the sending in of the twelve spies was not God's idea. It was that weakness of the flesh. And Israel said, But oh, we don't know. Can't we send in spies? And you know, God, in His goodness and in His graciousness, what did He do? He said, All right, I'll let you send in spies. But see, that was not His intention. So, verse 21, reading on then, Go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee, Fear not, neither be discouraged. But now read the next verse. What happened? And you came near unto me, every one of you, and said, We'll send men before us, that they shall search out the land, and bring us word again. They're saying, Now listen, Moses, we don't really believe that God is going to do what He says He'd do, but let us send in men that can confirm, and they can tell us what to do. Now, isn't that awful? That's literally awful. You see, they were taking things out of God's hands, and putting it into the hands of mere mortals. See, because had those 12 spies come back and said, We can take it, then what would they have done? Then they'd have said, Well, okay, we'll go. But when the 12 spies came back, now let's go back over again to Numbers then, chapter 14. And like I've already said, it was a sad, sad setting. Here the land of milk and honey was sitting there in front of them. Everything was ready, and they could have had it all without one ounce of work. Now, of course, the picture here is, Israel could have entered into what the Bible calls God's—what's the word?—His rest, see? They wouldn't have had to labor, they wouldn't have had to dig the wells and so forth. They could have just walked in, and it was ready for them. That's why He called it the land of milk and honey, the place of God's rest. All right. But now here they are. They're crying. They're murmuring. Verse 3, Wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be appraised? Now what hypocrisy. Is that who they were really worried about? Nuh-uh. No, these guys were scared to death of the giants that might be up there in the promised land. And you know, it's almost amusing, and yet it isn't because it was such serious business. Flip across the page, at least in my Bible, in the same chapter, chapter 14, to verse 31. Oh, let's go back up to verse 29, oh, even 28. Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in my ears, so I will do to you. Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. Now remember, they could have had the promised land. But your carcasses will fall in this wilderness, and all that were numbered of you. Now we skipped all that. You see, they were all counted, and from those numbers is where I get the number that there were anywhere from three to seven million of them. And again, all you got to do is just do a little computing, because all together there were over 600,000 men of war. Now that's young men, unmarried, and then you compute all their relatives and their families, and you can easily get five million people. No problem. And that's why I make it a round figure of three to seven million. I can't imagine this. And I've used the analogy more than once. The whole megaplex of Dallas and Fort Worth, Dallas and Tarrant County together, only a little over three million, see? Now can you imagine Dallas-Fort Worth out there in the wilderness of Sinai? See, most of us have got just pictured maybe a few hundred or a few thousand at the most. Listen, there's millions of them. Now that in itself is miraculous. All right, but I'll come back here. Verse 29, from the middle of the verse, "...according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me. Doubtless you shall not come into the land concerning which I swear to make you dwell therein except Caleb and Joshua." Now verse 31, you remember I'm always saying one of the most important words in Scripture is B-U-T. What does it say here? But your little ones, see, all the ones that they thought they were so concerned about that would die in the wilderness, God comes back and almost like a comedy of errors, what does He tell them? Your little ones, now read it, which you said, back here in verse 3, these little ones that you said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land that you despised. Isn't that something? But, you know, I always have to tie this in to 1992. Isn't that exactly where the human race is today? Everything that God has put out there for the human race, what do they say? Oh, for one reason or another, they've got a million excuses, I don't want to be part of it, I don't want it, and yet look what they're missing. Look what they're missing. And that which God has promised and He's made available, they have despised it. We're no different. We can't look down the Jew on our nose and say, well, you know, we'd have done differently. No, we wouldn't. The human race is the same from start to finish. Well, anyway, now if you'll come back, then, to Numbers 14, verse 4, "...and they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us..." What? "...return to Egypt." Now, that's a short memory, isn't it? Now, you remember what the conditions were in Egypt? Then what were they bellyaching about? That was the word for it. Oh, our taskmasters, they're cruel, and they were. They worked from sunup until dark, and they got just enough compensation to keep them alive to work the next day from sunup until dark. And yet, when they come on the very threshold of the land of milk and honey, they look back and they think that was heaven on earth. And again, aren't people the same way today? Sure they are. Yeah. I mean, it's stark—what's the word?—unbelief. It is stark unbelief. That's all their problem was. Now, we've used it before, but, you know, I'm great on repetition. Go to Hebrews chapter 4. In fact, I think we used it maybe just—time goes fast, I know, but I think it was just a few weeks ago, but I'm going to use it again because I think it is so appropriate for you and I right now today at this present time. Hebrews chapter 4—no, I'm sorry, chapter 3. Hebrews chapter 3, and again, let's go all the way back to verse 7. Hebrews chapter 3, verse 7. Now, remember when Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, he was writing primarily, not exclusively, but he's writing primarily to Jewish believers. And consequently, he's going to use an awful lot of the Old Testament contacts and experiences in order to make his point. Now, here it comes in verse 7, and he's going to be quoting from the book of Psalms, "...wherefore, as the Holy Spirit saith, today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, as in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers," or forefathers, "...tempted," or tested, "...me, prove me, and saw my works forty years." Now, you see the setting? Paul here is making reference to that forty -year wilderness experience that followed their rejection of going in at Kadesh Barnea. Verse 10, "...wherefore, I was grieved with that generation," the generation that said, Oh, we're going to lose all our women and children. "...I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart. They have not known my ways. So God speaking now, I swear in my wrath, they shall not enter into," now here's the words, what, "...my rest." They could have had it, but he says, "...now you shall not enter into my rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you," now remember, this is for us as well, "...take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of covetousness," no, "...an evil heart of immorality," no, "...an evil heart of anything else you can think of," no, but what's the word? Unbelief, see? "...lest there be within us an evil heart of unbelief." Now that's why this same little book of Hebrews, in fact, turn with me, hold it right here, turn over a couple pages to chapter 11, Hebrews chapter 11, what I call one of the two absolutes that we have to confront, and you cannot detour around them, you can't compromise them, they are so absolute. Now there are a lot of things in Scripture where I'll tell people, you know, I don't get all shook up that you don't agree with me, because there is room for disagreement, but there are some areas there's no room for disagreement, and here's one of them, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, "...but without," what's the word, faith, see, "...without faith it is impossible," now that means exactly what it says, that's why I say you can't compromise this, you can't skirt around it, "...without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe," see, that's faith, you've got to believe that He is and that He is for real, He's the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Now I said there were two, so I might as well hit the other one while we're here in Hebrews, and that would have to be back in chapter 9, verse 22, chapter 9, verse 22. Now, you know, there's, from liberal circles, there's some not very kind words about the blood -bought way of salvation, they make comment about it, and a lot of denominations over the last ten years have taken every song out of their songbook that has any reference to the blood, whether you know it or not. Some of our major denominations have removed all the hymns with any reference to the blood. Well, the reason is they don't like it, but look what the book says, here again is an absolute that you cannot compromise or detour. Chapter 9, verse 22, and almost all things are by the law, going back again to the Old Testament, purged by blood. But here's the part of the verse that applies to every human being today, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission, there is no forgiveness. It has to be, again go back to that tabernacle that we had on the board. What did the high priest have to do every year? He had to present the blood. It was the only thing that opened the way up for man to approach God. There is no other way. There is no approach to God other than the blood-sprinkled way. So, without faith we can't please Him, without the shedding of blood we can't please Him. And now come back to Hebrews chapter 3, then it all rests on the fact of their lack of faith, their unbelief that they could have had the very rest of God, they could have had the land of promise, but they turned away from it. Speaking to us, he says, exhort one another daily. While it is called today, while we still have this kind of an opportunity, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Now always stop and think. How do we recognize sin and how do we deal with sin? And again I want it in one word, faith. Faith. Because you see, unless we can believe what God says about certain activities or certain acts, we don't know that it's sin. But when God says it and we believe it, then we know what it is. Our whole daily walk is prompted by faith in God. Romans 3 23 says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I've always said that's the first step in salvation, to believe that I am what the book says I am. And that is short of the glory of God. So that's the first step. It's taking God at His Word concerning myself, concerning you. All right, so faith just simply, how shall I put it? Faith is that which guides us not only into salvation, but all through our Christian experience. It's all based on what the book says, not what someone else says. That's why, you know, people have told me, and I appreciate it, you know, you don't condemn this and you don't condemn that. You notice that? I don't have to. I don't have to tell people, well stop doing this and stop doing that. Because as soon as they get into the book and see what the book says by faith, then they're going to take appropriate action. And so I still maintain, you get people into the book, you get them to believe what God says and all those things that a lot of people scream about, they'll take care of themselves. All right, now I want to finish this before our time runs out. So then verse 14, for we are made partakers of Christ. Now remember, it's His righteousness, and it's on that basis that He justifies us, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. Now I know a lot of people like to jump on that and say, see, it says if, and that's conditional. Well, in spite of the word if in this particular verse, I'm still going to maintain that once we are in Christ, we are going to partake, we are going to remain steadfast. God's going to see to that. And then verse 15, while it is said today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts as they did back there in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke, how be it not all, that came out of Egypt by Moses. And remember there were, what, how many that escaped? Joshua and Caleb, and of course Moses and Aaron. But for the most part, that nation that was old enough to respond, totally in unbelief. I mean, it's hard to comprehend. Only a few survived that judgment in their unbelief. All right, verse 17, but with whom was He grieved that whole 40 years? Was it not with them who had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? Now again, you want to remember, I always remind people this, it was only a few months previous to this that they had that horrible, immoral setting around that pagan golden calf. But is that what God's concerned about? No. Because again, why did they worship and why did they dance at the golden calf? Unbelief. See? Had they believed in the God that Moses was dealing with up there in the mountain, would they have asked for an idol? No. Had they believed in the holy and the righteous God, would they have had lascivious dancing? No. See what I'm saying? Faith takes care of everything. All right, but what was their problem? Our time is gone. And to whom swear He that they should not enter into His rest, but to them at what? There it is. There it is. And you know, that's the problem today, just as much as it was then. People will not, and for some reason, people cannot believe the Word of God. Oh, the intellectual community will try to argue it away from their highly educated position, and they just can't bring themselves to say, but this is what God says. And so then, they entered or not because of unbelief. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. 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